Strange Loop

2009 - 2023

/

St. Louis, MO

Managing memory with Rust: dispelling the FUD

Rust is a nifty programming language which offers C++-level performance with the safety of languages like Java and Python. Rust achieves this balancing act with its unique "borrow-checker", which verifies memory management safety at compile time. While the Rust community and ecosystem are growing quite rapidly, unfortunately, there is a great deal of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) around the borrow checker, and many people simply don't try Rust as a result.

In this workshop, attendees will develop a comfortable understanding of how memory management works in Rust, the role of the borrow checker, and how to take advantage of Rust's capabilities to write extremely fast code that is immune to segfaults and buffer overruns. Attendees will learn that, despite the FUD, Rust's memory management is not manual. They will also learn that, despite the FUD, the borrow checker is your friend.

The workshop is structured as a sequence of short lessons alternating with hands-on exercises. Bring pen or pencil and a laptop with a network connection. No prior Rust experience is assumed.

Jeremy Brown

Jeremy Brown

Self employed

Jeremy Brown received his PhD in computer science and electrical engineering from MIT in 2002, after which he worked at Bluefin Robotics and ITA Software before co-founding Jaybridge Robotics in 2008. After 8 years of making tractors and mining trucks into autonomous vehicles, the Jaybridge team moved en masse to Toyota Research Institute in 2016. Jeremy remained at TRI until 2018. He is presently self-employed as an entrepreneur-on-break, which is a fancy way to say deliberately unemployed. He is presently working to sharpen his technical skills (which had been lightly dulled by years as a full-time manager), to develop new business plans, and (soon) to seek co-founders for his next startup. Jeremy lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is married to Prof. Daniele Lantagne. They are raising two small children together.